Software Testing in the past and today. Part 4️⃣: Top-7 most important skills of a prospective software tester today.

Brought the profession of software tester closer

Soft Skills

When reading a job description for a software tester, one thing you will notice very quickly is a long list of technical requirements and desired experience in the IT industry. Soft skills seem to get short shrift here, when in fact they are just as important as technical skills. From the very first minute of a job interview, you'll be measured on those very soft skills, whether you're applying for a manual software tester or making your way as a test automator.

The next parts of this post will take you through the soft skills that are most important for an aspiring software tester.

Communication

Testers need to be able to communicate with team members, developers, and other stakeholders. Different projects mean different people with different personalities, perspectives, and requirements. No matter who you are, you should have excellent communication and interpersonal skills to effectively express your opinion and thereby overcome difficult situations. The following soft skills are particularly noteworthy here:

📌 The ability to ask questions: Asking the right questions and knowing when to ask a question and when it is better not to is a true art that requires years of experience. So the rule is: When in doubt, always ask.

📌 The ability to listen: One should furthermore actively listen in order to uncover special features that might otherwise have been overlooked. There is always room for improvement and potential to grow.

📌 The power of persuasion: Developing it is particularly difficult, because this skill also requires a lot of life experience above all else. You need it to clearly present defects to product owners and software developers. It's a way to ensure that defects can be identified and fixed in a timely manner, and risks mitigated accordingly.

Critical thinking

Critical thinking helps a prospective software tester improve his or her own thinking skills, for example, in idea evaluation and all decision-making processes.

❗Software testing basically means thinking critically about the software.

It is called critical thinking when you systematically doubt something even though all the "signs" indicate that everything is fine. When you go to work with the help of critical thinking, you strengthen your conviction all the more.

After all, bugs don't show up and say "Here I am" - they like to hide. So, for each test, you should consider what questions will drive your evaluation strategy: Am I testing within scope? What am I overlooking? What should I focus more on? If you want to become an excellent tester, learn how to think critically.

Organizational skills

As a tester, you have to convince your colleagues that there is a defect in the code, monitor the application, and identify bottlenecks. There just aren't enough hours in the day to do all of this, let alone during the week when you're bogged down with many projects, staying up late as a result and having to get up early to catch up on work .

Even if you create a master's thesis plan, no matter how brilliant, and try to plan your time effectively, each day brings new challenges and thus messes everything up again. With this in mind, it's important to hone your organizational skills as well as learn how to prioritize your tasks, say no to the unimportant, and keep your emotions under control in the process. So, if a software tester stays organized, they can save a lot of time throughout the project process.

That's it for now with our introduction to the professional and business field of "Software Testing". As you could clearly see, this industry has evolved tremendously since the middle of the 20th century and nowadays imposes tough requirements on aspiring professionals in this field. In the next few posts, we will address the most important and up-to-date topics and questions that a future software tester should have heard before. See you in the next post!